WASHINGTON (Reuters) – British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has been unwise to set an end-2020 deadline to seal a deal over Britain’s post-Brexit relationship with the EU and playing brinkmanship will not work, EU Trade Commissioner Phil Hogan said on Thursday.
“We need to wake up to this reality that gamesmanship and brinkmanship are not going to work on this occasion,” Hogan said at the CSIS think tank in Washington, adding that a U.S.-UK trade deal was also not an easy matter.
“If you want to do a deal together I wish you well, but I’m hearing messages from the various players in this town that it won’t be as easy as the United Kingdom and the United States think, certainly it won’t be as easy as the United Kingdom thinks for the United Kingdom to strike a deal that actually meets the objectives of the administration here.”
(Reporting by Andrea Shalal and Philip Blenkinsop)
